When we were asked by Headland Media in Liverpool, new owners of the Walport Training Library to produce the first of a new series of safety training DVDs, our brief was to work with Headland to make a programme about safety during Lifeboat Drills.

The awesome truth is that 16% of the fatalities among seafarers on commercial vessels happen during lifeboat drills.  And 80% of the deaths are caused by one thing – failure of the hooks from which Lifeboats hang.  All too often Lifeboats, with men in them, have plunged 20 metres or so to the sea causing terrible injuries and death.  One rescue attempt led to a rescuer being lost from the hull of the upturned lifeboat as it floated away on the high seas.

Filming the deployment of real lifeboats from a ship presented not just real hazards for our crew but logistics problems in finding a ship available to film on.  What we eventually found was in a most unlikely location – on the River Fal near Truro in Cornwall.  Laid-up sister container carriers Santa Giuliana and Giulietta tower over the Thatched Cottage Tea Rooms at Tolverne , although laying up ocean-going ships has been going on in the Fal for many years.

Our crew, including presenter Hugh Kirby, cameraman Andrew Goode, soundman Rob Lacey, editor Ian Williamson and director Ian Ward, all had to climb aboard from the small boat that took us across to the Santa Giuliana.  All our kit had to be hauled aboard by rope using the ubiquitous Hippo Bag!

The solution to the hazards of deploying lifeboats appears to be a fairly simple strop arrangement known as a Fall Prevention Device or FPD (naturally!), evangelised by Capt Dennis Barber of Marico Marine, and about to be accepted by the international shipping safety body, the IMO.

The programme is due to be launched imminently and can be obtained from Walport Training.